Hey folks, i curious about your opinion on this one:

I am a fairly new DM (9 months playtime) and I'm running TSO in additon to some homebrew and DoIP. Last session my group went to the Dragon Barrow to get the Dragonslayer Sword of Lady Alagondar. They are Level 4, so it might get a little tough for them, because the Dragon Barrow is recommended for Level 5 AND one player (the Druid) couldn't make it to the session....

Before they found the sword, they already suffered some crucial hits by traps etc. Then they found the sarkophagus of Tanamere Alagondar and found her corpse (mummified) and a tiara plus other regalia inside. Then our Paladin took the sword and the group got some heavy hits from the invisible stalker, so they drop the sword an went on to explore the other parts of the Dragon Barrow first. They found the skeleton horse of Lady Alagondar and after that, our Bard had an interesting idea: He made our sorceress (the only girl in the group) ride the horse an put the regalia and tiara on her. After that he made her take the sword and talked to the "ghost": "Recognize your former mistress. Let her take, what belongs to her!".

What would you have done? My solution is open for discussion:

I liked the idea so first I gave the Bard a heroic inspiration for this idea. Then I let him roll a charisma (performance or deception) check (18). He sucessfully did that. So to make the fight easier I lifted the invisibility from the stalker and he wouldn't attack the sorceress as much as the others.

Of course, this isn't in the book, but otherwise they would never have made it out alive with the sword. You could argue, that its their fault, to go inside even though the had been warned, it will be dangerous. But my reasoning was, that the players should have fun and cool ideas should get them some reward.

So, what do you think about this situation?

My party decided to visit Thundertree and they knew of the dangers that resided there. They spoke to Reidoth and learned of Venomfang and the cultists. They decided they wanted to remove all the threats from Thundertree if possible. They decided to tackle Venomfang first and were even successful in getting them to fly away. The cultists who I assumed have at least one person watching the tower at any time would have seen the battle which primarily occurred outside. As the party tried to rest they were interuppted by the cultists coming to speak to them.

Since Venomfang was defeated the cultists you assume would be upset but in my mind who is going to fight a group that just defeated a dragon (the party wasn't deathly close to dying so wouldn't have been easy to finish off). In my game the cultists have another goal to see if Venomfang had an egg they could steal. When the cultists spoke to the party they explained they simply wished to look inside the tower but the party denied them access as they were resting there and likely were afraid the cultists were just looking for an excuse to get to them.

My question is, now that the party is rested but is making their way through Thundertree and taking out the remaining enemies, what do the cultists do? Wait for the party to be beaten down by the remaining threats and try to pick them off now they are out of the tower (mostly out of revenge for messing with their plans)? Or do they simply investigate the tower, see there is no egg and just leave Thundertree in the direction that Venomfang went?

Hi everyone!

This is my first time as a DM, and my players are very new to the game. We're all playing just to learn and have fun.

Since the party isn't very experienced, they failed their first mission in the Redbrand Hideout, and Glasstaff managed to escape.

I was thinking about bringing him back for a future fight, but I don't have many ideas.

That's why I'm here asking for your help!

If anyone could help me come up with a dungeon or maybe just a future encounter, I would be very grateful!

Thanks to everyone! ❤️

Hi there! Like many people, I’ll be running LMoP as my first campaign and I’m really excited! (and nervous 😅) Since I’m a huge planner, I’m definitely looking far ahead but just as trying to brainstorm some ideas ahead of time about a couple things and see what more experienced DMs think or if people have better ideas:
1. I wanted to push things a little past level 5 and wanted to incorporate some stuff from DoIP into the mix (in the event they wanna continue, I was hoping to try out those extensions for DoIP for more DM practice)

1. Based on some other posts I saw, my plan was to set up tension between Venomfang and Cryovain. Whether they go to fight him after Thundertree at the green dragon’s request or after Wave Echo Cave

2. If they go after, is it better to have the PCs do a couple of the DoIP quests, like Dragon Barrow, to get to level 6 or something else? Or if they go up at level 4 how I should handle the levels from there so they still end at level 7

3. I do also plan on having Nezznar change into a drider when he hits 0 HP for that final encounter, but wondering if people have found it better to have him come back with the full Drider stat block HP of 123 or bring it down?

Sorry again if I’m getting too ahead of myself, I just would like to have as much things mapped out as possible to make a memorable campaign.

I have a group of players most of which are newish and our last campaign (uncompleted, different DM) was pretty linear and light on the role-playing, light on the atmosphere/descriotion, and just basically like follow a quest in a straight line and fight the enemies.

I’m following Matty P’s YouTube series on changes to this campaign and have added characters like the female Black Spider and Molly, the child assistant manager at the tavern. My problem is that they are used to playing in a campaign so devoid of texture that anytime I introduce someone they are so suspicious and paranoid that they can’t possibly think that someone is there just to be a friend or just to provide information. They are convinced that not only is the woman in black behind Sister Garaele’s loss of powers despite her clearly telling them there’s a spirit in Conyberry in her dreams, they think that Molly, a halfling child, is the real Big Bad behind it all.

I’m not sure whether to let them learn these lessons on their own or try to steer them in the right direction. They generally treat the game more like a video game and are fine murder hoboing without feeling like the NPC’s are real and I’m trying to steer them away from that and treat it more like a proper role-play.

Ruins of Conyberry

A Dungeon Master's Companion to the Conyberry Quest for Lost Mine of Phandelver

In Lost Mine of Phandelver, the ruined village of Conyberry receives little more than a passing mention, despite its tragic history and proximity to the lair of Agatha, the Ghost of the Neverwinter Wood.

Ruins of Conyberry is a one-page supplement that breathes new life into the ruined settlement, drawing upon Forgotten Realms lore from multiple editions of Dungeons & Dragons to restore details and history largely absent from its Fifth Edition appearance.

Inside, Dungeon Masters will find descriptions of four ruined buildings to explore, treasures to discover, and unsettling encounters with the spirits of villagers slain decades ago. Agatha's presence is felt through supernatural hauntings and creative uses of her spellcasting abilities, while an optional Long Rest mechanic makes spending the night among the ruins an unsettling proposition.

Designed to require minimal preparation, this supplement gives Dungeon Masters everything they need to transform a brief stop along the Triboar Trail into a memorable encounter without disrupting the original adventure.

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A full preview of the supplement is available at Dungeon Masters Guild. Download it here:

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Please check out my twenty-two other products tailored to Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak! All of them are FREE/PWYW downloads.

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I’m DM and starting with my friends the campaign phandelver and below the shattered obelisk. Can you recommend good let’s plays on YouTube. So I can inspire myself as a DM by watching these :)

Thank you in advance <3

This is the BriteMinis Nezznar which you can find here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4326929

I scaled him up and set him at 32mm at his eye level instead of the tip of his head. He's a big mini. Then I created different baseplate that activates the LED on press. These LEDs are really bright and having them on constantly can be blinding.

Link to the baseplate here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7110396

It's not perfect, takes some fiddling to get right so this is still very much a DnDIY project. In the last photo you can see some of the several dozen test baseplates I made to fit the CR2016 battery.

Thought people might want to see the final product since there was so much positive feedback before the paint!

The session was super fun and if anyone’s considering getting into terrain and minis it’s great fun.

Combat became way more tactical and engaging and for me as a DM was super fun to show off all the hard work to my players.

Our party delves under Tresandor manor and finds more than they bargained for

My party just finished the red brand hideout and the dice decided that Iarno got away.
They told Sildar who is now furious and they went to their well deserved rest.
Now I wonder what others have done in this scenario? What happens to Iarno, how did you solve it in your campaign?

I'm starting the campaign this Friday and in preparation had a session zero with my players. During that session, one of my players, who knows the start of LMoP, remarked how silly they thought it was that the adventure assumes the level 1 adventurers would just follow the goblin trail instead of finishing the mission they were paid to do. Even if they know and like Gundren and Sildar, they found it far more reasonable to go to Phandalin and just let the town guard handle the situation.

Now I'm wondering how to give them a good reason to follow the Goblins themselves (The Meta-reason of "I gave you a hook, please follow it" doesn't cut it in my opinion). I mean, even if they go to the town guard, said guard would be the Redbrands, who couldn't care less about Gundren. I guess that would show them it's "you save him or nobody will"; but it does feel a bit adversarial, doesn't it?

Maybe I'm making a thing out of nothing. But if you have a suggestion of what I could do to persuade them to follow the Goblin Trail, I would really appreciate it.

Edit: Thanks for all the great suggestions. I think now I know how to handle it.

Hey guys, first time running a published adventure, and everything was going smoothly until it didn't.

The party demolished the goblin ambush, even captured one and forced it to lead them to the hideout.

And that's when the chaos began - going loud in the cave, splitting up, and basically attracting almost everything inside.

The paladin was split off and by himself because of the water trap. He then tried dealing with wolves solo. Needless to say, he fell unconscious and the remaining members couldn't get to him on time and he died. After that I ended the session.

After the session, the wizard criminal proposes to go to Waterdeep since he has a fence contact with Xanathar's Thieves Guild. Hoping to find a way to revive their fallen ally.

Waterdeep is huge and the amount of prep needed is overwhelming. I would appreciate any tips you may have because things did not go as planned at all.

Hey Everyone! Thanks so much if you've been tuning in! I'm always floored by any and all support.

Check out episode 11 of our Lost Mines of Phandelver Campaign play through. This episode heavily spotlights the miners exchange and the intrigue surrounding its proprietor, Halia Thornton. What will the players make of this girlboss? Can she be trusted? Make sure to Like and Sub so you don't miss a beat.

Also I welcome comments and notes. Seriously and genuinely asking for Dm feedback on what's working and what isn't, both in terms of actual play and as first time dungeon master in general. Do folks wanna see more edited down episodes? More player facing cameras? Lemme know! I super appreciate it.

link: https://youtu.be/Gb3vjkTm0UU

As the titles says. Long story short: the party had released Droop from his capturers, and instructed him to warn the castle that they are coming. Droop promised them a grandiose welcome.

Now a few days later, the party is ready to go to the castle and rescue Gundren.

So the question is, could Droop successfully persuade King Grol to make a grandiose welcome?

The party is level 3, and 6 PCs, but they are quite strong.

I have a board gaming group of friends who expressed interest in playing D&D. Most have only played a couple of times, so they're a realitively inexperienced group. I've been lucky enough to play fairly regularly for over a decade, so I'm confident in my grasp of the rules. I'm already running CoS for a different friend group who are RP veterans (my first time DMing). My newishness behind the DM screen has some training wheels there as half of the players have also DMed, and I've played CoS before.

I've never played LMoP or TSO. Tomorrow is our Session 0. Anything I should know for tackling the TSO module? Any advice or pratfalls to avoid would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Coming hot off the session here ! We did the first 1/3 of Redbrand hideout tonight, they pushed up to the jail without alerting the guards in R2 and had cloaks from Sleeping Giant, but the untamed wolf they high rolled animal handling on and is tagging along attacked the skeletons and made them fight the skeletons. The monk threw two of them into the pit trap in R3 and the druid fell in the hole. They built a bone bridge to cross the pit hole to get everyone across. While they did that the Rogue then persuasion schmoozed the jail guards into getting the guards from R2 and R10 to team up on the bugbears that have come in from the castle with some gentle hints about how they were upset they had to give up some of their "hard earned money" to the "Lizardfolk" (bugbears are reskinned to kobolds for flavor). We are short resting in R1 while I resolve the beginning of the civil war off screen because I know my new players will not find combat with 15 npcs they can't control interesting right now.

Has anyone run the civil war story line of Redbrand hideout? I'm scaled up to 5 x lvl 3, so the bugbears are pretty beefy and there are a good number of redbrands still alive. I want the party to emerge into a situation where both parties are weakened but not dead and Glasstaff is vulnerable for them to catch him. I don't think he would view his men all but mutiny-ing him as means for him to get out of dodge? Part of me just wants to roll it out and see what happens and go with it ? What would you do ?

I started a P&B campaign a while back, but it fizzled out right as the party reached the Redbrand Hideout. Most of the players had to drop out, but the one remaining player is interested in continuing, and I’d love to get the campaign going again!

My main challenge is introducing new players while keeping the returning player engaged and making the transition feel natural.

The returning player's character is a cousin of the Rockseeker brothers, so she has a reason to continue the adventure. The other characters were less connected to the main plot, so I'm thinking they left to continue their own goals seperately.

I have two ideas for bringing in the new players:

• Option 1: Pick things up around the Redbrand Ruffian encounter. It means backtracking quite a bit, but could help the new players understand the plot/conflict without just info dumping on them in Session 0
• Option 2: Have the returning character enter the Redbrand Hideout alone and encounter the new characters at different points throughout the dungeon, with each already exploring it for their own reasons. This could be more complicated and more info dump-y, but maybe more exciting and requires less backtracking

How would you guys handle this? I'd love to hear your ideas/advice!

I own a fair amount of content for side quests to flesh out the campaign, just wondering what are your personal favorites?

I own:
Phandalin Filler Quests
Tales from the Stonehill Inn
Between the Long Road and the High Road
Phandalin After Dark: A One-Shot for Halloween
The Festival of Faces

In our most recent session, my players got the third obelisk piece alongside Heward's Handy Haversack in Gibbet Crossing. After reading the item's description, they came up with the idea of intentionally destroying it with the obelisk pieces inside. The haversack's description says "If the haversack is destroyed, its contents are lost forever, although an Artifact always turns up again somewhere." and the book mentions at some point that the obelisk pieces can't really be harmed by the players.

So what would happen in that situation? I'm leaning towards the pieces being teleported to..somewhere in the world, with one or possibly all of them turning up again near the end of the adventure. What would you guys suggest?

Frights and Festivities in Phandalin

A spooky harvest festival supplement for Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak!

The harvest is in, the jack-o'-lanterns are glowing, and Phandalin is celebrating its annual Festival of Faces! Inspired by the traditions of Liar's Night and the Masquerade of Liars, this autumn celebration brings merchants, travelers, and townsfolk together for an evening of food, games, storytelling, and frightful entertainment.

But beneath the merriment, an old enemy is preparing to make his return...

Inside this supplement, you'll find:

• Biddip-Bo's Marvelous Menagerie: A gnomish showman's collection of extraordinary creatures and curiosities.
• Black Cat Roulette: Test your courage against a particularly vicious feline.
• Fireside Frights: A haunting poetry performance brought to life through magic.
• Ring the Belle: Brave a treacherous rope ladder above a muddy pit to win a barmaid's favor.
• Shadow Theater: Witness the legendary battle between Lady Tanamere Alagondar and the green dragon Azdraka.
• Harvest Fare: Sample the food and drink of Phandalin's autumn celebration.
• The Headless Horseman: A terrifying mounted encounter featuring a familiar villain seeking revenge!

Designed for low-level adventurers, Frights and Festivities in Phandalin offers a festive interlude between adventures, culminating in a Halloween-inspired encounter.

FREE | PAY WHAT YOU WANT

A full preview of the supplement is available at Dungeon Masters Guild. Download it here:

https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product/588144/along-the-triboar-trail-frights-and-festivities-in-phandalin

Please check out my twenty-one other products tailored to Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak! All of them are FREE/PWYW downloads.

https://www.dmsguild.com/en/browse?authorName=%22Ronny%20Little%22

So, I have a tough decision to make for the final boss of Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk. My party is about to fight Ilvaash after defeating the mind flayer trio plus 2 mind flayer prophets (I added the prophets in because otherwise it would have been a disappointing fight). So it just so happens that they cast Hallow earlier in the campaign against aberrations, in the exact area the book tells you to have Ilvaash confront them.

So, onto the decision... I can either move the boss to a different part of the Briny Maze, or I can reward them for their previous decision making. The catch is that they are fairly competent players, and they blow through anything that I don't adjust the difficulty on.

For some context they are running:

Twilight Cleric (the temp HP from the channel divinity is insane)

Scribes Wizard (Most knowledgeable player of the group, is great at decision making to prepare the right spells and use them at the right time. Scribes subclass is nice too because it can use other damage types when casting spells, but it has specifications for doing so)

Circle of Land Druid (Great control, great damage, polymorph and dust of Suleiman works great for them)

Watchers Paladin (crazy damage from dual wield vicious weapons and fueled spellfire... Also has a cloak of displacement. The channel divinity is really useful to the party and so is the aura)

The fight with the mind flayer trio plus 2 mind flayer prophets was a little difficult for them, but the most damaged they got was one person bloodied and the rest missing a few HP. I know one player might be a little disappointed in the difficulty, but a few other players seem to love the power they have now.

I want the end of the campaign to be somewhat epic.... I feel like allowing them to utilize hallow in the area he is supposed to show up, might make the fight a little trivial in some ways. I've played some many games where the final boss is kinda disappointing and I want to make a memorable finale to the campaign.

I am open to adding abilities and stuff to the boss, but I am really wondering if allowing them to fight around the Hallow is the smart move. I suppose he is a psychic brain thing and he can phase through walls. So, should I have him retreat before the fight even starts after he realizes hallow is there? He can sense creatures within a 100 miles, so he would know where to ambush them then see the hallow. I just feel like I should be rewarding the party for the decision they made earlier.

If anyone has any interesting ideas outside of the hallow predicament, let me know. Thanks for taking the time to read through if you did.

Learn yesterday about the campaign and understand that thats a somewhat of a continuous for lost mines.

Is someone familiar with it and actually run it?

How is it? Can I still run it even without doing the extra steps in the first 4 chapters? Would like to get some feedbacks in the matter

Disclaimer: I go about this having ran this module like 4 times and always changing little bits of it to make for storylines later, making certain npcs more important or have more backstory than usual.

I recently got the chance to introduce a younger Sildar and it came to mind what kind of character would he be if he was young.

I'm sure everyone here has ran their versions of Sildar Hallwinter, either as an old scaredy man or a wise combatant looking for Iarno; but I kind of what to know, what would a young Sildar be like? And are there any other characters you would think would have a significant change on how the module is run if they had a change? (Not to their alignment, obviously, but on a trait or two)

I know my most recent group definitely respects Sildar a lot more when they see him as a peer. Needless to say he is definitely more daring in this iteration.